"My partner is a wheelchair user and doesn't find missionary very comfortable. Can you recommend any positions that we can try?"

Andrew here! I received an interesting question in The Lovehoney Head Board inbox recently that dealt with disability, and it is among a category of questions that disabled people are asked when it comes to their sex lives.

Aside from people wanting to know if we can even have sex at all (which, by the way, is super offensive and ableist), the next common question is “How do you have sex?”

Well, we received the question above from someone who wants to know what positions, other than missionary, would work best for their partner who is a wheelchair user, so keep reading for my recommendations.

I can understand why one might ask this. Missionary position is the most popular sexual position, and if your partner can't do it as a result of physical disability, you might worry that they can't have sex at all.

Well - fear not, I promise you that there are a number of other positions that you can try that will maximise your pleasure, and will be easy for both you and your partner.

It's not all about penetration

The very first thing I want to suggest to is not to consider penetrative sex at all. As a wheelchair user myself, being unable to contort my body into almost all the positions, I have had to learn how to look at sexual pleasure in a whole new light.

Rather than worrying about penetrative positioning, I get to focus on pleasing my partner with different sex acts. I have turned foreplay and oral sex into the main event, and don't often look to penetrative sex for satisfaction.

What I love about this, is that it allows me to really connect with my sexual partner and build a bond and intimacy that may not be there otherwise. I get to focus on all the little moments that make the sexual bond special and important.

I get to laugh with them, and play with them, while also realising why sex with them is amazing. I get to taste, touch and feel them more, and this can lead to better, more communicative, more earth-shattering sex.

Trust me, more so than any type of penetration, that's the kind of sex that your partner is after. Whether or not you can have penetrative sex doesn't really matter.

Missionary: modified

That being said, if you were looking for sex options that offered some type of penetration there are some things you can do with each other, and I can speak to some of them here.

One of the things you might consider is a modified version of the missionary position.

In this position, the partner on the receiving end would be out of their wheelchair or mobility device (be sure to talk with your partner BEFORE engaging in any type of transfers to ensure comfort for everyone), with their legs on the edge of the bed.

If you prop their body up with pillows, this would be a great way for you to have missionary-style sex with added comforts.

Slip into Spoons

I would also recommend that you look into penetrating your partner from behind, with her lying on her side and you spooning her while also penetrating her. I feel that this is a really great option, simply because it doesn't require a lot of work for the two of you.

When you have a disability, a lot of the positions that we are expected to engage in can seem daunting, tiring and altogether painful. Lying on your side is great because it relieves pressure and can make the motion of sexual penetration less painful.

Again, I would suggest using pillows to provide maximum comfort. I would also recommend getting a high quality lube to make insertion easy and fun!

So, there are options for penetrative sex that work for disabled people and their partners, it may just take some figuring out which position works best for their disabled body.

But more so than the act of penetration itself, remember that our bodies are designed for pleasure of all kinds, and when having sex with a disabled partner, this is a reminder we all could use.

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